The New Movie Magazine (Dec 1929-May 1930)

The Robot Mystery By Arthur B. Reeve HOLD everything! Lock those doors, Walter! Let no one off this set! I'll take charge here!" Instantly Kennedy was by the side of Velva Lavelle, the famous star of the musical movies, bending down where she had pitched forward over a cafe table in the set, a thin trickle of blood slowly spreading like spilled claret over the table from the head now motionless against the arm outstretched with fingers wildly apart as if grasping for safety in the thin air. "Shot clean through the frontal bone — out at the base of the brain — death practically instantaneous," he muttered. "Here, get back there, you people. Hold everything. I say! McCoy, take your still camera. Shoot a still from 'this angle — then another from that. They'll be invaluable to the police. Let me have that script, the scene plot, everything — yes — where's that musical score? Thanks, Fallon. From the door where you are, Walter, how about the angles for a shot? Was it possible to strike Miss Lavelle from outside? No? I thought not! Then the shot must have come from inside — and no one's had a chance to get away — unless it was someone iust entering, inside the door. You've called the police and an ambulance over the studio telephone extension here, Walter. Victor, just drop that white drape over her body 7> now. There, now I'm ready to begin!" Before the big double door of the sound-proof stage at this corner of the Liberty Pictures Studio a frightened little chorus girl stared wide-eyed at me. "Wh-what'll they do, Mr. Jameson — with the picture almost finished — and the star — dead!" I did not answer. It was just one „i those strange twists the mind takes in the tenseness of a big scene that has been overlaid with a real tragedy, too. It was not heartlessness. What ,vould be done — about anything? Apparentlv only Kennedy knew and in the welter of consternation he dominated. . Velva Lavelle, the idol of the talking movie fans, who had made such a hit the previous season in "The Younger Generation," had come back to the pictures and was in a musical movie, "Bits of Old Broadway." It happened that this day they were taking scenes from "Floradora" in the life of Old Broadwav. Craig and I were visiting the Liberty Sound Studio, he because they were trying out on the experimental stage an invention of his own which he called the Phonoptic System, synchronizing the movie film with a record on a telegrapone, and I because I had sold the picture rights to a story, "Synchronized Murder," which had 'just about been completed. It may be unnecessary to remind the talkie fans, although I am going to do it. that Arelva had married Frank 68 Fallon, a dancing man of the legitimate stage, who also had some facility with the piano and jazz. Financial backers had set Velva up with a night club, the El Velva Club, which she now owned, but Frank ran. I do not think I shall be subject to an action for slander when I say that Fallon was really nothing more than a super-gigolo, a smooth racketeer. At any rate, it was not long before they separated. Frank was still running the Club, but Velva really owned it. It was a valuable venture, especially so at this time because of a contract that had just been made with a little dancer and entertainer. Fay Warren, who was beginning to get over with the public and was clearly on the up and up.